"For centuries, mankind has tried absolutely everything to achieve immortality, from searching for mystical fountains of youth to literally putting corpses in cold storage hoping the future can un-kill them. Considering that we don't have Ponce de Leon or Walt Disney hanging out in Florida today, it's safe to say that we're failing in this department.

Meanwhile, some animals living in our world seem to be kicking death in the ass just by hanging around and doing what they do. These species have managed to stick around the planet for mind-blowing amounts of time ... at least until we killed them and dissected their bodies to find out how they did it. For example ..."

There are many highly-qualified scientists around the world spending their days endeavouring to bring extinct species back to life ... is that really 'our' best way forward? Many and various reasons why species fall by the wayside ... often simply a case of evolve to accomodate changing climates or die out [cataclysmic activities notwithstanding] ... if you don't really know the exact circumstances that caused a species to fade away [and 'they' really don't] you will learn little or nothing from trying to de-kill [apparently a popular phrase] them. It does however get you some recognition .........

Forgive me but I don't read The Scum, the Daily Tale, Bonjour! Magazine, Lies of the World and such stuff. Now if you'd quoted The Guardian, The Independent or even The Telegraph I'd read it.

Pray excuse I for not indulging your sensitivities:

Revealed: The emu and ostrich can't fly because their ancestors became fat and lazy when the dinosaurs died

Birds like the emu and ostrich gave up on flight because they became fat and lazy when the dinosaurs died, according to new research.

An abundance of food and a lack of predators following the extinction of dinosaurs saw a number of birds fatten up and simply stop bothering to take to the air.

Many scientists had believed that the ancestors of modern flightless birds - such as emus and ostriches - were also flightless.

But a new study suggests they could fly and gradually stopped making the effort.

The research was carried out by scientists from the Australian National University who studied the genetics of the now-extinct giant moa birds of New Zealand.

To their surprise, the researchers found that rather than having a flightless predecessor, their closest relatives are the small flying tinamous of South America.

The study, led by Dr Matthew Phillips, suggests ancestors of the African ostrich, Australian emu, South American rheas and New Zealand moa became flightless around 65million years ago. This coincides with the extinction of dinosaurs.

Dr Phillips' study, at the ANU's Research School of Biology, included DNA sequencing of 22 bird species including flightless and flighted birds.

He said: 'Many of the world's largest flightless birds - known as ratites - were thought to have shared a common flightless ancestor.

'We followed up on recent uncertainty surrounding this assumption.

'Our study suggests the flighted ancestors of various ratites appear to have been ground-feeding birds that ran well.

'So the extinction of the dinosaurs in all likelihood lifted pressures from predators which had previously meant they were destined to be smaller and could fly.

'In the absence of predators and with abundant food resources on the ground, there is a tendency for birds to evolve larger size and become flightless. We see this a lot on islands - dodos for example.

'Larger, ground-feeding birds can be more efficient at turning food into growth and reproduction, but size increase makes flight less efficient.'

The finding of independent origins of flightlessness also solves a mystery of how these flightless birds dispersed across the world over marine barriers - their ancestors flew.

The research is published in this month's issue of the journal Systematic Biology.

Indicators therein as to why the human race is voluntarily [collectively] placing itself in a position of vulnerability.

“Some days I am an optimistic pessimist ... other days I am a pessimistic optimist”

Oh dear oh dear, all this happens when people start quoting from daily rags. Perhaps we should have some authoritative quotes from History Channel (ancient aliens etc) as a source back-up and I sure Fox news would verify everything as well. The first thing that came to my mind was the kiwi bird http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi another flightless bird but of the smaller variety than the emu and ostrich which the ANU researchers have failed to mention or included in their research as it is a different path in evolution. Which also raises the question about how they survived the events that killed the dinosaurs.There's also the penguin and a host more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Flightless_birds .MGV12,The Ashes were lost before the tour started, but I did enjoy the comments (sledging) from Pommie supporters on the BBC's live coverage page. Especially the man who said "Don't feel sorry for the Aussies, crush them", definitely a man from the 70s and 80s who remembers. All these boards of selectors and committees without actual cricketers on them making decisions (mostly bad) because little Joey or Johnny has been a bad boy. In the good old days I recall David The Keg on Legs Boon http://www.fhm.com/upgrade/david-keg-on ... e-20090708 enjoyed a drink then went on to crush the Poms. Now all they want to do is fight each other, change coaches, change managers (that's a new one) and generally be politically correct. I say crush the pommie bastards!